Samsung hints at a future mixed reality headset (and at unsolvable problems for Gear VR)

When in 2015 I had my first Samsung Gear VR, I was amazed: finally, I could enjoy high-quality tether-less virtual reality. Yes, it was a 3 DOF toy, so I couldn’t move my head in games, but it was the first time I tried a sensation of freedom in VR. And it was great also because it was portable: some evenings, I took it with me and let my friend try high-quality virtual reality. But now, these days are over and while the standalone headsets like Vive Focus and Oculus Go are rising, the mobile headsets are becoming always more something of the past.

Just let’s observe what has just recently happened at Oculus Connect 5: Mark Zuckerberg has defined the first generation of Oculus consumer VR headsets as comprised of the Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, and Oculus Rift. There was no mention to the Gear VR in the overall conference… only at a certain point, someone on the stage said “our headsets, like Go, Quest, Rift, and others“.

Samsung, on its side, is not releasing new Gear VR headsets since a while, providing only compatibility of the latest Gear VR with new flagship phones through adapters.

Things do not go better for Gear VR’s competitor Daydream View: at the recent launch of the Pixel 3, there has been no mention of virtual reality… and Google has just stated that Pixel 3 is Daydream compatible (with the old model of Daydream view, of course) when journalists asked the question after the event.

Today, thanks to the fellow VR community member Eloi Gerard, I’ve found an article on lowyat.net that confirms that Samsung is not that enthusiast about Gear VR and that has probably different future plans. In the article, the online magazine interviews DJ Koh, President of Samsung Electronics, that talks about a lot of interesting topics, like the Samsung J series, 5G, Artificial Intelligence and so on. The interview is very informative and I advise you to read it following the previous link.

The last question of the article has been about VR… and I’ll report it, together with the exact answer of Mr. Koh, and a commentary of mine

LYN: We noticed that Samsung hasn’t mentioned or highlighted virtual reality since the Galaxy S9 launch. Is Samsung no longer interested in VR anymore? Or Samsung is looking into different kind of experience for their customers…augmented reality or mixed reality, perhaps?

Nice question, I’m curious as well.

DJ KOH: We were the first company to deliver a VR headset for our mobile devices, and we have definitely invested a lot in the medium. However, the reason we haven’t spoken about VR for a while is due to a couple of issues.

Ok, so Samsung is proud of what it has done, but there have been problems.

The first issue is content.

Here it is not clear to me what he means with “content”. I guess that he refers to the fact that the available content for Gear VR is not that compelling to attract people to use VR. The Oculus Store on Gear VR had a good number of apps (the order of magnitude is superior to one thousand for sure since the Oculus Go has been released with more than 1000 (ported) apps), so I guess he’s not referring to the number of content, but to quality. Too many 360 videos, too many minigames. Yes, there were nice-to-have apps, but no app that was compelling enough to keep people hooked to the platform.

The second problem is a comfort issue: we noticed that customers who used our VR headset couldn’t use it for more than 25 to 30 minutes at a time. This was due to a lens problem, and we couldn’t overcome those limitations.

This is very very interesting: according to Samsung, people can’t stay inside Gear VR comfortably for more than 30 minutes because of a non-better-specified problem with lenses. Maybe the lenses cause too much fatigue to the eyes, or the too little FOV makes people feel like they are wearing binoculars… I don’t know, I can’t find a clear explanation for this.

It’s curious because if I think about the problems of Gear VR, there are other bazillion reasons that come to my mind:

• The friction of having to put your phone in the headset every time you want to experience VR;
• The fact that the Gear VR was able to overheat the phone, ruining its battery life;
• The fact that a VR enthusiast had to choose between using a phone or using VR;
• The various bugs (with my Note 4, I’ve experienced a lot of freezes of my phone while using Gear VR);
• The 3 DOF form factor, that may lead to simulation sickness.

While Samsung talks about a “lens problem”, that is even unsolvable. “We couldn’t overcome those limitations” seems like a tombstone to the Gear VR in my opinion. According to Samsung, Gear VR has a problem that can’t be solved… so it is a platform that has no future… because no one would bet on a platform that makes people use VR for only a limited period of time.

Today, we are heavily looking into incorporating both VR and AR (Augmented Reality). We haven’t decided which route to go with this yet, but we’re working closely with our partners on this. I’ve tested a prototype headset that actually incorporates both VR and AR, and it really delivers a much better experience with that combination.

Wow. Translated: they are working on something else. Something that spans from AR to VR. The form factor is not certain, it can also consist in various products targeting AR and VR. But most probably it will be a Virtual Reality headset offering screen-through AR capabilities, as it is possible with the Vive Focus, Vive Pro, Varjo + Mixed Reality addon, or Rift + ZED Mini Camera. This necessarily means a VR headset with two frontal cameras in the same position of the eyes. The fact that they didn’t decide what route to go, in my opinion, means that they have not decided yet if betting on a mixed reality PC headset (a la Vive Pro) or a mixed reality standalone (a la Vive Focus).

Samsung has already the Odyssey that has two frontal cameras, but given the fact that the future is standalone, that Samsung is an excellence in mobile devices and that there is a rumor from some months ago about an AR/VR standalone headset by Samsung, I bet on the latter possibility. (Even if, honestly, I don’t know why the lenses here should offer more comfort than on the Gear VR…)

Michael Abrash has said that “VR will be the best [form of] mixed reality for a long time” and seems that this statements by Samsung, together with what Oculus, HTC, and Google are doing, confirm that most probably he was right (but… when is he really wrong? 😉 )

Notice that while the interview reported by this article is an official one, my consideration reported above are purely speculative, so not take them for the truth. But honestly, I think that the statements were pretty clear in specifying the intention of the company. And I also think that it is in line with what the whole market is moving at this moment.

Let me know what do you think about this in the comments or write me on my social media channels! And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter…

(Header image created by modifying an image by Samsung)